


Grillmaster Glaives

by JazzRaft



Series: Festive Food Fluffs [14]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, Family Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Food Porn, Gen, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 02:59:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15524583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: Nyx completely forgot that he’d promised to cook for the King. Much to his embarrassment, the King – in his infinitely enduring memory – had not.





	Grillmaster Glaives

Nyx completely forgot that he’d promised to cook for the King. Much to his embarrassment, the King – in his infinitely enduring memory – had not.

“I believe that summer sabbaticals are scheduled to begin soon,” Regis said one evening, idle chatter in transit from one great hall of the Citadel to the next. “I’m certain that Ignis is capable of arranging everyone’s time to coincide for one evening of Galahdian barbecue. Perhaps under the pavilion in the Western garden? The pantry will supply the ingredients, and there’s a fire pit that should suit your needs, but do let me know if you will require anything else.”

Nyx had stared in uncomprehending silence at the King as he shadowed his crooked steps. For a horrible, nauseating moment – that he would kick himself later for even daring to think into the world! – Nyx thought that His Majesty must have been having a stroke. Because he couldn’t understand a single word he was saying.

“Do be sure to invite some of your colleagues,” Regis went on. “Sir Ostium and Altius, perhaps. They are informed of your relationship with Noct, correct? Otherwise, it will be the usual suspects from Hallowtide. The Amicitias, Cor – if I can get him – Ignis, and Mr. Argentum. As well as myself and Noct, of course.”

Nyx nearly came to a halt, nearly cemented his boots to the tiles and careened face-first into the floor with the forward momentum that failed to stop with the rest of him.

 _Hallowtide._ The masquerade gathering of selected Lucian nobility which Nyx had braved in costumed disguise at Noct’s behest. It had nearly been a year since the royal entourage had welcomed his then newly discovered romance with their closely guarded prince.

Nyx remembered that first harvest season with Noctis – soft and unsure, sneaking into each other’s lifelong festivities under hood and mask and nervous curiosity. He remembered the warmth of the bonfires brightening his home district in the dark, with Noct shuffling wide-eyed alongside him; and he remembered the sinful banquet of fine foods shared in a ghoulishly transformed ballroom, with Noct’s hand holding his beneath the table.

He remembered it all like an enkindling hearth whenever he tried to recreate those harvest festival dishes for Noct on chilled rainy nights in his little apartment kitchen.

He remembers it now like the spike of a fever, flaming up to his cheeks in shame that he had, in fact, forgotten his sort of pseudo promise to share the King’s dinner table again at a later, less public venue.

“Will next weekend suffice?”

It took Nyx a moment to fiddle with the starter that was stalling in his brain before his motor-mouth revved up to answer. Dumbly – so, _so_ dumb, _what in the world are you thinking?_ – Nyx smiled, and answered with a cordial, “Sounds like a plan, Your Majesty.”

 _Sounds like you’re screwed!_ He’ll end up poisoning them, immolating them all from the inside-out with his chili pepper perversions of traditional Galahdian fare. Clarus and Cor might have let him live for dating the King’s son ( _for now_ , always _for now_ ), but Nyx was fairly certain they’d draw the line at flambéing two royal figureheads with a single forkful of Crowe’s “Secret Scalding Spice Rub.”

 _Maybe don’t invite Crowe_ , he thought to himself, the whole way home. Maybe arrange to be mauled by a behemoth and put on mandatory medical leave that day. Maybe make up some last minute summer plans to visit his ailing mother across the sea – he was sure to get a battering from his well and able mother for _that_ excuse, but it would be a small price to pay for preserving the honor of his family name.

Alas, his fate was sealed with Regis’s wry curl of a smile when he left him to his royal chambers.

“After all this time, you’re not seriously still afraid of my father, are you?”

“There’s a thin line between fear and respect, little king. I’m prescribed a healthy dose of both for your father.”

Noctis snorted, “You make him sound like a disease.”

That would certainly explain the fever pitch playing in his pulse, pounding as wildly as Noct’s thumbs on the screen of his phone in an effort to slay a new raid boss. Noctis slapped his thigh and muttered a curse as the screen branded itself in the big red letters of defeat. He tossed the device onto the tiny dented trolley that served as Nyx’s sorry excuse for a coffee table.

Somehow, the soft patter of sleek, expensive metal on the warped, cheap iron made Nyx feel even sicker. He couldn’t furnish his own apartment to better befit a royal sleepover! How was he supposed to impress a full house of extinguished guests with his amateur, island bumpkin cooking?

“You’re not a bumpkin, Nyx.”

Did he really say that out loud? _Really?_

Suddenly, Noctis was in front of him, holding his arms to stop Nyx from pacing a trench into his floor. “You’re worrying over nothing,” Noctis promised him. “It’s not as if we’re a secret anymore.”

Publicizing their relationship had been a risk volunteered by the both of them, nurtured by that anticipatory feeling of springtime hopefulness, indulging in the seasonal promise of a fresh start. Being cast in the public image of “royal sweetheart” had been both the proudest and most terrifying moment of the whole affair. Some days, Nyx was still uncertain that the kingdom’s easy acceptance of him wasn’t all some carefully constructed conspiracy of Cor and Clarus enforcing a hundred dissenters into silence under the shadow of the King’s command.

The thought of outing himself as the Prince’s consort used to shave ten years off of Nyx’s life, whereas now, every day spent without scrutiny added one more. He wasn’t afraid of shaming the Crown with his friends’ unfiltered commentary about world politics (okay, he might have been a _little_ afraid of that), nor was he scared of what sitting next to him might do to the peoples’ opinion of Noctis.

“What is it?” Noct asked, as if he could hear both the thoughts Nyx didn’t say, as well as the ones that slipped off the tip of his tongue without his meaning them to. “You’re great at cooking.”

“I’m great at grilling,” Nyx corrected, chuckling at Noct’s cocked-head look of exasperation. “It’s not the same.”

Noctis didn’t argue, merely rolling his eyes and letting it go, lest he distract Nyx from admitting why he was really afraid of cooking for his father. Nyx hadn’t been quite certain himself – aside from envisioning the monarch he so admired spontaneously combusting across from him like a king-shaped kebab. Nyx breathed out a long sigh through his nose, gave a brusque shrug, and the truth of the matter came a little easier when it was just Noctis there to keep it for him.

“Never got the chance to cook for my dad.”

It wasn’t as if it was a rite of passage missing from the hierarchy of ceremonies memorialized on the beads in his hair. It wasn’t as if his mother’s pride hadn’t been enough, or even lesser than his father’s might have been. It wasn’t something he lost sleep over, or anything. The shock of being tasked to satisfy a royal table with his own family recipes had just knocked a few dusty hang-ups back down into Nyx’s head.

Noct – his sweet, unassumingly wise Noct – who was so unsure with his words, yet always seemed to have the perfect one to soften Nyx’s self-doubts – slid his arms up Nyx’s chest to link around his neck. He stood on his toes to reach a kiss against the tip of his nose.

“Mine will be proud of you,” he promised. “Just, um, maybe keep your mom’s crab boil off the menu.”

Nyx had to laugh at that, Noctis wrinkling his nose as he relived his unfortunate unpreparedness for the Ulric matriarch’s fearless use of hot spices the last time he’d visited Galahd. If any Ulric family recipe could fully realize Nyx’s nightmares of searing royal flesh from bone, his ma’s secret spicy seafood soup would most certainly orphan the throne.

Food in Galahd was as sacred as a glaive’s sword. It was more than mere sustenance, each ingredient cultivated for a recipe in tribute to that family’s heritage. The history of the islands was as much kept in their cuisine as it was kept in the blood of their people. A whole clan's identity went into their sauces or their spice rubs or whatever they’d tailored to their lineage through the generations, distinguished through unique and fiercely protected secret recipes.

Which was why Nyx was better once he had a grill in front of him. Because Libs was there to stress enough for the both of them about the sanctity of his granny’s secret sauce.

“Don’t want any nosy Lucians picking apart Gran’s recipe,” he groused, skewering unsubtle glances towards Ignis Scientia, obliviously sipping at wine coolers across the garden.

“Shup up and whisk.”

Crowe’s knife clapped down through the cabbage, a warning to his most valuable appendages should he not heed it. Nyx was happy to have invited her after all, if not for the sake of his own sanity, then for Libs’. He was quiet for a beat, steadily stirring sesame oil into his rice wine mixture until it emulsified. Once he started mumbling more grievances, the point of Crowe’s knife snapped upwards and Libertus nearly dumped the whole vinaigrette across the grass.

Nyx snorted from his seat by the fire pit while his friends swore and spit at each other over a table strewn with the carcass of Crowe’s cabbage. The sounds of their voices made it feel more familiar, more like home. He could smell Crowe as much as he could see her through the ripples of heat off the grill, flames bursting open the spices that coated the tenderloin beneath Nyx’s tongs. Libertus was a low cologne of smoky flavors painted across the cooking meat, his coveted marinade lovingly rendered into every groove as Nyx brushed it in.

“Smells really good,” Noctis crooned into his ear, having curled his way through tables and chairs and tugs at his elbows to supply Nyx with a bottle of beer.

“Hope it tastes as good.”

“It will,” Noctis vowed – the pickiest of them all, somehow so certain it would be perfect.

All of Nyx’s previous anxieties to the contrary, he was growing more and more confident in his creation the longer he was left to his own devices. Once he could focus, once he could work the ingredients beneath his fingers and breathe in all the scents he knew by heart, he could stoke that nervous flicker inside of him into a flame.

The families he grew up around were master fishermen, bakers, picklers, and briners. Each region of Galahd had a distinct flavor: the salty tang of fresh fish from the coasts, the pungent smokiness of coal-fired produce from the miners’ descendants, and the floral fruits chopped into salads from the families that lived on the edge of the jungles.

The Ulrics were canyon-born. They knew the heat of a hot summer between crimson cliffs baked by the sun. They were born with fire in their lungs, his mother told him. They were born to wield the flames. And wield them they did, taming Ifrit’s ire into campfires and grills to conjure the perfect char, that buttery, fall-off-the-bone consistency, roasted low and slow over the smoldering perfume of carefully selected eaves of wood.

“This your secret family recipe?” Noctis asked, draping his arms over Nyx’s shoulders between the meat’s rotations.

“Oh yeah,” Nyx said, smiling at the backs of Crowe and Libertus. “Very close family, very top secret recipe.”

“So secret that you can’t even share it with me?”

Nyx pressed a palm innocuously against Noct’s pout, pushing his face away from his. “Did Scientia send you over to grill me? Little traitor.”

“You’re the only one grilling, Nyx.”

And he grilled it all beautifully, if he did say so himself. Once it was finished, the noble assemblage of the royal favorites jostled along the picnic benches, murmuring over bowls of cabbage salad and rice peppered with clean cubes of raw fish, cold beers and iced teas, platters of bright grilled vegetables and melted cheese on breads. All the balancing forces to contend with the powerful heat radiating from the cut of meat crowning the table, dark red with its peppery crust and dripping with sauce as thick as molasses. And it cut like luscious slices of cake, his knife carving away deep-hued layers like curls of chocolate off the block.

“Now, I don’t know if Noct’s warned any of you,” Nyx said, as more and more slabs of meat were traded among the plates. “But in Galahd, we don’t mince on heat.”

“Then I like the way you eat,” Gladio boomed, amber eyes glinting like gemstones as he sized up his slice.

Nyx didn’t miss the wicked smirk that speared across Crowe’s face, entirely too expectant of the pride before the fall to her mad concoction. While Nyx had implored her to mild it down just an octave for the sake of all their jobs, it would still rip the sails right off of the most daring Lucian challenger.

“Before we begin,” Regis announced from the head of the salivating table. “I’d like to extend thanks to our hosts for their most generous hospitality.” He lifted a half empty bottle of beer, the cheap glass such an out-of-place object against the primeval craftsmanship boasted by the Ring of the Lucii. “To family. May our table always have room for more.”

A contented chorus of raised drinks and agreements sent Libertus hiding down the bottom of his beer and Crowe looking like she was ready to run and hide lest she was told none of it was real. Reality set itself down though, in a comfortable nest of moving utensils and mouths silenced by forkfuls of food.

Prompto was the first to feel the burn, simultaneously fanning one hand against his tongue and forming a thumbs up of approval from the other. Gladio was short to follow, though he put up a strong façade of clamping his jaw down on a grin so tense with redness that the lines of his throat stood out like telephone poles. Various faces of pretending at unaffected amused the picnic table, none of them fooling the Galahdians exchanging victorious toasts between more generous mouthfuls.

The best poker face of them all was the King’s, as stoic of a figure as carved marble, but Nyx did think it oddly excessive that he took a drink of ice water after each bite. It was after one of those small attempts at subtlety that Regis cleared his throat to compliment Nyx – or keep himself from screaming, Nyx wasn’t sure, but he was preening either way.

“This is excellent, Nyx,” Regis said, perhaps a touch raspier than normal. “I had no idea you had such an affinity for the culinary arts.”

“Can’t take all of the credit, sir. It really does take a village.”

“My compliments to that village. And my sincerest hope that you’re not afraid to bring them more often.”

Nyx nodded and muttered quiet thanks for the praise and promise of future get-togethers. Beneath the table, hidden from the others – old habits – Noct’s hand fit into his, squeezing an “I told you so” between his fingers. The Prince smiled beside him, lips reddening around the edges as the spices lashed from beneath his skin. Nyx would need to be tender with them later, because after all of this, after how unimaginably effortless it was to fit his two families into one, to share his heritage with once-strangers he now met as friends and a man he respected more as a father than a king, there was no secret spice rub hotter than the molten core of his happiness that he wanted to kiss into Noct until they both melted.

That much he would be keeping a secret, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you've enjoyed this tasty dish! If you enjoyed your meal, please consider tipping with a comment and come again for more festive food fluffs *bows*


End file.
